William Prescott is a researcher at Bright Blue.
Yesterday, seemingly out of nowhere, the UK Government announced an agreement to surrender the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) to Mauritius.
As well as undermining Western security, it only further compounds the injustices inflicted on the BIOT’s former inhabitants, the Chagossians.
Comprising 58 Indian Ocean islands known as the Chagos Archipelago, the BIOT is, despite its combined land area of just 58km2, of great strategic value. As a Policy Exchange report noted, the Indian Ocean:
“..is the major space linking the Atlantic, Pacific, and even the Mediterranean”. Home to a major US military base, the BIOT’s largest island, Diego Garcia, is arguably “one of the most useful military pivots the five-eyes nations have”.
The BIOT’s early years hardly marked the retreating British Empire’s finest hour. The islands were originally administered by the British colonial government in Mauritius, largely for “administrative convenience”. However, recognising their strategic importance and to secure the establishment the US military base, the UK government transformed the islands into a separate territory in 1965, paying £3 million in compensation to the Mauritian government.
Although Mauritius initially raised little objection to the territorial changes, it revived its claim to the BIOT in 1982, some 14 years after its independence in 1968.
More recently, in 2019 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a non-binding judgment which held that the 1965 separation was illegal and advised the UK Government to hand the islands back to Mauritius. The UK, however, rejected the ICJ’s findings.
Shamefully, to make way for the US base, the UK illegally expelled the entire 1,800-strong Chagossian population to Mauritius and the Seychelles between 1968 and 1973.
Following their deportations, many Chagossians struggled to find work, finding themselves “marginalised and in poverty”. While the UK provided some financial support to Mauritius to aid resettlement, the Mauritian government refused to transfer the funds to the Chagossians until 1978. Deportees to the Seychelles, meanwhile, received nothing.
In 2002, the Islanders were finally given UK citizenship, although this was not extended to their descendants until 2022. Despite acknowledging that the BIOT’s depopulation was “obviously wrong”, however, the UK has consistently refused to permit resettlement, “on the grounds of feasibility, defence and security interests, and cost to the British taxpayer” even to islands outside the US base.
To settle the dispute, the UK will cede sovereignty over the entire BIOT to Mauritius but will retain control over Diego Garcia under a 99-year lease. The agreement, to be formalised in a treaty, guarantees the “continued operation” of the US military base “well into the next century”.
Mauritius will also, in theory, “be free to implement a programme of resettlement on the islands of the Chagos Archipelago, other than Diego Garcia”.
Unfortunately, despite its seemingly reassuring words, there are several major problems with the proposed agreement.
First, there has been no consultation with the exiled Chagossians. Having been expelled by the British government and repeatedly denied the right of return, the Chagossians have, to their frustration, once again been denied any right to self-determination.
This is especially significant since there is no indication that most former islanders want the BIOT to become part of Mauritius. While happy to invoke the islanders’ plight in its campaign against continued British administration of the BIOT, Mauritius’ own treatment of the Chagossians has been patchy, as the delay in transferring support payments attests.
Moreover, it is far from clear that any transfer of sovereignty would automatically involve the Chagossians returning to their homeland; the proposed agreement merely says it an option.
Second, the agreement risks emboldening claims to other disputed British overseas territories, especially Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands, which are claimed by Spain and Argentina respectively.
While the Foreign Office argues that the BIOT represents a “very different issue with a very different history” and that it “committed to our overseas territories family”, others, including several former Cabinet Ministers, fear the precedent that surrendering the BIOT will set.
Third, although the proposed treaty guarantees the important US base on the island of Diego Garcia, ceding the remaining islands to a Chinese ally undermines Western security at a critical time.
Unless there is a clear binding guarantee, there is nothing in theory to prevent Mauritius from allowing China to establish its own facilities on one of the other islands; indeed, the US private warned against handing over the islands for that very reason.
Ever since its establishment nearly six decades ago, the BIOT has been tainted by the dreadful treatment to which its indigenous population was subjected. The only way to rectify this would be an agreement that, while recognising the strategic importance of the US base, gives the Chagossians a meaningful say in the Islands’ future. Sadly, like its predecessors, the new Government has instead chosen to ignore them.
